Only 500 persons owns 36% of all bitcoins?

[Minnlo]

Only 500 persons owns 36% of all bitcoins? come on thats a joke? i saw it in bitcoinrichlist. i wish i own those addresses lol.

I am not surprised to that at all.
IIRC, someone said in a post that Satoshi owns about 1/6 of all bitcoin.

he owns 1.5 million, so about 12.5% of them.. at least that we know off. the BTC has not moved in years though, so it doesn't seem like satoshi has swung with his assets.

We don't even know if Satoshi is still with us or not

[zeke1]

I'm sure satoshi is around and raking in.

[Peter882]

Only 500 persons owns 36% of all bitcoins? come on thats a joke? i saw it in bitcoinrichlist. i wish i own those addresses lol.

I am not surprised to that at all.
IIRC, someone said in a post that Satoshi owns about 1/6 of all bitcoin.

he owns 1.5 million, so about 12.5% of them.. at least that we know off. the BTC has not moved in years though, so it doesn't seem like satoshi has swung with his assets.

We don't even know if Satoshi is still with us or not

So, satoshi is already a billionaire now.

[Itun]

Only 500 persons owns 36% of all bitcoins? come on thats a joke? i saw it in bitcoinrichlist. i wish i own those addresses lol.

I am not surprised to that at all.
IIRC, someone said in a post that Satoshi owns about 1/6 of all bitcoin.

he owns 1.5 million, so about 12.5% of them.. at least that we know off. the BTC has not moved in years though, so it doesn't seem like satoshi has swung with his assets.

We don't even know if Satoshi is still with us or not

So, satoshi is already a billionaire now.

Yup.. lucky for him

I wonder if he sold his or some of his btc yet.

I heard he didn't spend one bit...

[Soappa]

Only 500 persons owns 36% of all bitcoins? come on thats a joke? i saw it in bitcoinrichlist. i wish i own those addresses lol.

I am not surprised to that at all.
IIRC, someone said in a post that Satoshi owns about 1/6 of all bitcoin.

he owns 1.5 million, so about 12.5% of them.. at least that we know off. the BTC has not moved in years though, so it doesn't seem like satoshi has swung with his assets.

We don't even know if Satoshi is still with us or not

So, satoshi is already a billionaire now.

Yup.. lucky for him

I wonder if he sold his or some of his btc yet.

I heard he didn't spend one bit...

If any of Satoshi's btc is spent, I am sure there will a flood of "OMG, satoshi is back!!!" posts.

[niothor]

That website has not listed this
https://blockchain.info/address/12sENwECeRSmTeDwyLNqwh47JistZqFmW8

[bitcoinproplayer]

That website has not listed this
https://blockchain.info/address/12sENwECeRSmTeDwyLNqwh47JistZqFmW8

Wow ... those numbers ...

[niothor]

That website has not listed this
https://blockchain.info/address/12sENwECeRSmTeDwyLNqwh47JistZqFmW8

Wow ... those numbers ...

Lols , I posted the wrong one,
They split the bitcoins form the 200k stash into stuff like
https://blockchain.info/address/1JT6DTNLMzR4F6cPziRYhBGcJ3cptP2KXZ

still .......not mentioned on the richlist.

[AndrewNoble]

Only the person pos- ... 500. 499. 500. 1,000. 35. 1,000. 5,000. 41. 5,000. 10,000. 5. 10,000. 50,000. 5

[woobo]

Quite expected..

[DeathAndTaxes]

Only 500 persons owns 36% of all bitcoins? come on thats a joke? i saw it in bitcoinrichlist. i wish i own those addresses lol.

You do know more than a person can control an address right.  Like maybe a massive exchange's offline cold storage address right be in the last who's collective value is the wealth of thousands or tens of thousands of users.

[Komsomol]

I found this really interesting

http://bitcoinrichlist.com/charts/bitcoin-distribution-by-address

The table shows how many wallets contain a certain number of bitcoins. Obviously one person can own more than one wallet but I find it interesting that there is less than 1,500 wallets with more than 1,000 bitcoins in them. Shows that there probably isn't all that many people who have gotten ridiculously rich off bitcoin yet, despite all the stories you hear.

In fact if some of those 1,500 wallets belong to the same person, diversifying their risk of a wallet breach it is even less.

[MoonShadow]

Only 500 persons owns 36% of all bitcoins? come on thats a joke? i saw it in bitcoinrichlist. i wish i own those addresses lol.

Even if this statement is true, which I doubt, it's still a more level wealth distribution than US dollar denominated wealth is.

[DeathAndTaxes]

I found this really interesting

http://bitcoinrichlist.com/charts/bitcoin-distribution-by-address

The table shows how many wallets contain a certain number of bitcoins. Obviously one person can own more than one wallet but I find it interesting that there is less than 1,500 wallets with more than 1,000 bitcoins in them. Shows that there probably isn't all that many people who have gotten ridiculously rich off bitcoin yet, despite all the stories you hear.

In fact if some of those 1,500 wallets belong to the same person, diversifying their risk of a wallet breach it is even less.

Well those are addresses not wallets.  Unless you intentionally consolidate coins a wallet will contain a large number of addresses.

So for example someone had a wallet with 1,000 active addresses and the average balance per address was 10 BTC they wouldn't be even on the top 100,000 address list but they would still have 10,000 BTC.  Another thing to consider is that most likely when a single large early adopter sells off a large amount of BTC it is being bought up by multiple parties so distribution to a larger base occurs.

As pointed out above most wallets use a new address for each tx and don't reuse addresses, and send all change to a new address so unless you intentionally "send coins to yourself" to consolidate it you won't end up with a few large value addresses.  The main purpose for those massive addresses is offline storage.

Say you are MtGox and users have deposited 500,000 BTC.  You know that on your highest volume day the net outflows (BTC withdrawn - BTC deposited) is 10,000 BTC it makes absolutely no sense to keep 500,000 BTC online where they can be stolen.  You can move 400,000+ BTC offline likely in single large tx and you may not need to move them to an online (hot) wallet for months, maybe years.  If the exchange remains popular and growing you may never need to move those coins online ever again. 

There are a lot of entities which act as a bailor (google it) for other people's coins.   Exchanges, the Bitcoin trust, Bitcoin ETF, Bitpay, and yes the SilkRoad (now in the hands of the DOJ).  Those entities don't "own" the coins they are holding them on behalf of someone else.  Now they certainly can steal them (and people should be aware of the counterparty risk) but for example if one (or dozens) of those top 500 addresses is MtGox cold storage address it doesn't represent the wealth of a single person (or even single company) it represents the entrusted wealth of thousands maybe tens of thousands of users.

[cimine]

500 people or 500 addresses? 

I understand that you can tell what balances each address has but is it possible to tell what addresses all belong to the same wallet?  If so how?

[Komsomol]

I found this really interesting

http://bitcoinrichlist.com/charts/bitcoin-distribution-by-address

The table shows how many wallets contain a certain number of bitcoins. Obviously one person can own more than one wallet but I find it interesting that there is less than 1,500 wallets with more than 1,000 bitcoins in them. Shows that there probably isn't all that many people who have gotten ridiculously rich off bitcoin yet, despite all the stories you hear.

In fact if some of those 1,500 wallets belong to the same person, diversifying their risk of a wallet breach it is even less.

Well those are addresses not wallets.  Unless you intentionally consolidate coins a wallet will contain a large number of addresses.

So for example someone had a wallet with 1,000 active addresses and the average balance per address was 10 BTC they wouldn't be even on the top 100,000 address list but they would still have 10,000 BTC.  Another thing to consider is that most likely when a single large early adopter sells off a large amount of BTC it is being bought up by multiple parties so distribution to a larger base occurs.

As pointed out above most wallets use a new address for each tx and don't reuse addresses, and send all change to a new address so unless you intentionally "send coins to yourself" to consolidate it you won't end up with a few large value addresses.  The main purpose for those massive addresses is offline storage.

Say you are MtGox and users have deposited 500,000 BTC.  You know that on your highest volume day the net outflows (BTC withdrawn - BTC deposited) is 10,000 BTC it makes absolutely no sense to keep 500,000 BTC online where they can be stolen.  You can move 400,000+ BTC offline likely in single large tx and you may not need to move them to an online (hot) wallet for months, maybe years.  If the exchange remains popular and growing you may never need to move those coins online ever again. 

There are a lot of entities which act as a bailor (google it) for other people's coins.   Exchanges, the Bitcoin trust, Bitcoin ETF, Bitpay, and yes the SilkRoad (now in the hands of the DOJ).  Those entities don't "own" the coins they are holding them on behalf of someone else.  Now they certainly can steal them (and people should be aware of the counterparty risk) but for example if one (or dozens) of those top 500 addresses is MtGox cold storage address it doesn't represent the wealth of a single person (or even single company) it represents the entrusted wealth of thousands maybe tens of thousands of users.

Thanks for that insight, so would there be anyway of knowing how many users of bitcoin there are if these are just addresses, presumably if the average person has multiple addresses there are about 1 million on that table with non-negligible amounts in them, that would suggest there are far fewer than 1 million users globally despite all the press-coverage it is getting atm.

[DeathAndTaxes]

500 people or 500 addresses? 

I understand that you can tell what balances each address has but is it possible to tell what addresses all belong to the same wallet?  If so how?

Not conclusively in all cases.   If two or more addresses are used in the same transaction then you can know they are both from the same wallet.  However if Bitcoin intentionally makes this kind of tracking difficult.  If you use a new addresss for each tx, send change to a new address, and don't reuse existing addresses while it may be possible to link some addresses together by analysising the blockchain it is impossible to link all of them together.  If someone cared enough they can make the job much harder but selecting inputs so they don't add additional information to the blockchain, using mixer services, and even used shared wallets (like exchanges) to kill the public trail.

As an example of killing the public trail:
If I deposit 1 input at a time to MtGox using a different address each time there is no way to link those txs together using the blockchain.  You would need a warrant to gain access to MtGox internal database.   I could then withdraw those balances (which will come from totally different random MtGox addresses) to individual addresses.  Making the amounts and number of withdrawals and deposits different and varying the frequency would make even probabilistic (guessing) analysis impossible.  Now imagine doing the same with multiple exchanges and other shared wallet services, cryptostocks, and even altcoins to ensure that the entire trail can't be reconstructed by a single entity even with private information.

[cimine]

500 people or 500 addresses? 

I understand that you can tell what balances each address has but is it possible to tell what addresses all belong to the same wallet?  If so how?

Not conclusively in all cases.   If two or more addresses are used in the same transaction then you can know they are both from the same wallet.  However if Bitcoin intentionally makes this kind of tracking difficult.  If you use a new addresss for each tx, send change to a new address, and don't reuse existing addresses while it may be possible to link some addresses together by analysising the blockchain it is impossible to link all of them together.  If someone cared enough they can make the job much harder but selecting inputs so they don't add additional information to the blockchain, using mixer services, and even used shared wallets (like exchanges) to kill the public trail.

As an example of killing the public trail:
If I deposit 1 input at a time to MtGox using a different address each time there is no way to link those txs together using the blockchain.  You would need a warrant to gain access to MtGox internal database.   I could then withdraw those balances (which will come from totally different random MtGox addresses) to individual addresses.  Making the amounts and number of withdrawals and deposits different and varying the frequency would make even probabilistic (guessing) analysis impossible.  Now imagine doing the same with multiple exchanges and other shared wallet services, cryptostocks, and even altcoins to ensure that the entire trail can't be reconstructed by a single entity even with private information.

Two questions

1.) how does anybody know exactly how many Satoshi has?

2.) How does one ensure that the change is sent to a new address?  Do you need a non-standard client?

[PenAndPaper]

Litecoin. The crypto currency where the printing press is in the hands of the people (off ASICs).

With a price tag of 40$. I don't think that it 'll take much longer before companies announce their first scrypt asics. My bet is on KnC for that.

[DeathAndTaxes]

how does anybody know exactly how many Satoshi has?

They don't.  There are some guestimates based on average computing power and the relatively low hashrate for the first year but nobody knows for sure.

How does one ensure that the change is sent to a new address?  Do you need a non-standard client?

The QT (reference) client will do this by default automatically (actually this behavior can't be bypassed).  Other clients may behave differently.